Alexis and Dora
Alexis and Dora is the title of an elegy by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , which he wrote in Jena in May 1796 and published as an introductory poem in Friedrich Schiller's Musen-Almanach for 1797 . For the seventh volume of his Neue Schriften from 1800 he edited the text, which then remained unchanged until the final edition .
The multi-layered love poem is one of the most important works of the classical phase of Goethe, who once again used the meter of the Roman elegies with the distich .
The elegy depicts the melancholy look back of a man who is carried off by a ship into the distance and who remembers special moments with his lover. Only in the crucial moments immediately before departure does love unfold and penetrate into his consciousness with its different facets.
Emergence
painting by Anton Maulbertsch in the parish church of Langenargen , 1732–1733
After Goethe had completed the Roman elegies, he also used the distich for other longer poems of this type. Between 1793 and 1799 he no longer wrote any cycles, but did write individual elegies that contain epic motifs without painting them narrative for longer.
In addition to Alexis and Dora , this group includes Eyphrosyne , the honor of the dead for the actress Christiane Becker , Hermann and Dorothea , which was initially designed as an introductory poem to the epic of the same name , Amyntas and The Metamorphosis of Plants , while the metamorphosis of the animals remained a fragment and instead of the Distiches, pure hexameters used.
A material suggestion for Alexis and Dora goes back to the legend of St. Alexius von Edessa , which Goethe got to know during his second trip to Switzerland . A landlady had touched him and Duke Karl August on November 11, 1779 with a hitherto unknown story so much that they later read it again in a hagiography .
Content and details
In Alexis and Dora , the focus is on the monologue of the young man who is left to his own devices on the ship rushing into the unknown and who is alien to the cheerful spirit of optimism of the others. Moved and carried away by the pain of parting, he loses himself in a vortex of thoughts and reveals his life in the ascending memory images. Framed by the narrative introduction and a brief concluding consideration, this role monologue extends from the eleventh verse to the dash after verse 154.
While the sailing ship strives through the “foaming tide further and out” and “all thoughts are directed forward”, Alexis, “a sad man ... turned backwards”, stands on the mast and visualizes the happiness of the first encounter and the interplay of finding and losing: over the years he had noticed Dora on many occasions. He observed them from a certain distance and was “used” to “see them / How to see the stars, how to look at the moon” without ever wanting to own them. Although the houses of the two were not far from each other, he never crossed their threshold, as, after the separation, he now desperately keeps in mind: “And now the horrible wave separates us! You only lie to the sky / wave! your wonderful blue is the color of the night to me. "
Only when one day “the sail is raised” and he hurries to the ship to travel far away with the blessing of his father does he pass the wall of her garden. Dora speaks to him, lures him into the garden and gives him the beautiful "fruits" of an intimate encounter while the sailors shout louder and louder. The result is a vow of love of eternal loyalty, which the girl repeats a little later under "the thunder of Zeus" - and the "tears seemed / As if through divine air, breathed softly from the eye." Alexis wants to shower her with jewelry and jewels after his return and gives in to further gift fantasies, until the cold fear suddenly clasps his heart: "Not the Erinyes torch, the barking of the infernal dogs / scares the criminal in the desperate field." The jealousy pretends that her door could open for you too open to others - “for him too the fruits fall.” So he would rather die and sink into the sea “in the dark of night” with the ship destroyed by the “shining lightning”.
This is where the vision ends and the sober narrator notes the eternal alternation of misery and happiness: the muses cannot heal the wounds, "but only relief comes from you, you good guys."
Background and meaning
In his last major theoretical work, On Naive and Sentimental Poetry , Friedrich Schiller also considered his own poetry and its significance in relation to Goethe's. He contrasted reflective and sentimental poetry with natural and naive poetry . While the naive poet in the “state of natural simplicity” refers to reality and the beautiful , the sentimental poet in the “state of culture” represents the ideal. In Friedrich Dieckmann's view, Alexis and Dora now fully corresponded to Schiller's expectations.
He praised the work euphorically and described it with its "simplicity" and "unfathomable depth of feeling" as the most beautiful thing that Goethe ever created. It is impossible "to think of a second case where the poetic flower is plucked from an object so pure and so happy". It is true that he did not understand why jealousy ventured to the point of happiness, which could sink into the vortex of fear; but he himself did not find any conclusive arguments against it and only felt how he wanted to hold onto forever the intoxicated feeling of happiness with which "Alexis leaves the girl and embarks". Goethe replied that "every unexpected and undeserved happiness in love leads directly to the fear of loss". He also wanted to increase the pathos of the passionate idyll to the end. Letters to Marianne Meyer and Wilhelm von Humboldt show that he particularly valued this elegy.
In Roman mythology , Occasio was considered the personification of the favorable opportunity and corresponded to the Greek Kairos . The goddess, often sung about and easily withdrawn, was favorable to those who made quick decisions, while she could be a hindrance to those who hesitated. In his fourth Roman Elegy , Goethe also sang about her: “This goddess, she is called opportunity; get to know them! / It appears to you often, always in a different form ”. Dora , who waits at the garden gate and intercepts Alexis hurrying to the ship to give him the symbolic fruits of love, can be interpreted as the goddess of opportunity in view of her name (short for Theodora , the gift of God ).
A down-to-earth background can be discerned in the farewell and travel motif: In Weimar, Goethe was often unable to concentrate properly around Christiane and the child and withdrew. The poem testifies to the tension between fulfilled love and the wish to leave it behind to pursue more promising business “on the high seas”.
Friedrich Dieckmann interprets the jealousy as an expression of the guilt feeling of those who had to evade the woman in order to be productive and refers to the extensive psychoanalytic study of Kurt Eissler : With the frequent stays in Jena, Goethe adjusted to the new circumstances and his life divided into the idle Weimar circle with the family, which ultimately made work impossible, and the productive, "latent homosexual circle in Jena". Christiane knew of his difficulties and did not consider his withdrawal as a reproach against himself.
Web links
literature
- Friedrich Dieckmann : Alexis and Dora . In: Goethe-Handbuch, (Ed.) Bernd Witte ..., Volume 1, Gedichte, Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-476-01443-6 , pp. 243–248.
- Albert C. Eibl: The riddle of the poet and love. On Goethe's Elegy Alexis and Dora. In: Critical Edition - Journal for German Studies & Literature. No. 26 (2014): »End«. Pp. 73–79: http://www.kritische-ausgabe.de/heft/nr-26-2014-ende
- Dieter Borchmeyer : The solution to the riddle in Goethe's Alexis and Dora . In: Paolo Chiarini (ed.), Building blocks for a new Goethe. Frankfurt 1987, pp. 66-92.
- Albrecht Schöne : Love spells: Alexis and Dora. In: ders., Signs of gods, love magic, satanic cult. New insights into old Goethe texts. 3rd, supplementary edition, CH Beck, Munich 1993, pp. 53-106.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Karl Otto Conrady, Goethe, Leben und Werk , Phantasien, Patmos, Düsseldorf 2006, p. 681
- ^ Gero von Wilpert : Alexis and Dora . In: ders .: Goethe-Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 407). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-40701-9 , p. 16.
- ↑ Erich Trunz , Elegien and Lehrgedichte In: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe's works, notes, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 597
- ^ Gero von Wilpert: Alexis and Dora . In: ders .: Goethe-Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 407). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-40701-9 , p. 16.
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Alexis and Dora . In: Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 186
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Alexis and Dora . In: Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 186
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Alexis and Dora . In: Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 188
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Alexis and Dora . In: Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 189
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Alexis and Dora . In: Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 190
- ^ Carsten Cell, On naive and sentimental poetry. In: Schiller manual, Life - Work - Effect , Metzler, Ed. Matthias Luserke-Jaqui Stuttgart 2001, p. 468
- ↑ Friedrich Dieckmann , Alexis and Dora . In: Goethe-Handbuch , (Ed.) Bernd Witte ..., Volume 1, Gedichte, Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, p. 246
- ↑ Quoted from: Erich Trunz, Elegien und Lehrgedichte In: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe's works, comments, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 606
- ↑ Quoted from: Friedrich Dieckmann. Alexis and Dora . In: Goethe-Handbuch, (Ed.) Bernd Witte ..., Volume 1, Gedichte, Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, p. 246
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Roman elegies . In: Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 159
- ^ So Friedrich Dieckmann, Alexis and Dora . In: Goethe-Handbuch, (Ed.) Bernd Witte ..., Volume 1, Gedichte, Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, p. 244
- ↑ Friedrich Dieckmann. Alexis and Dora . In: Goethe-Handbuch, (Ed.) Bernd Witte ..., Volume 1, Gedichte, Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, p. 246